Everyone seems to agree that innovation is a risky business: it involves a lot of experimentation, which often ends up in failure. High tolerance for failure therefore can be considered as a major prerequisite for any successful innovation program.

As the examples of successful use of crowdsourcing to address complex technical, business and social issues grow in numbers, so do the instances of failed crowdsourcing campaigns. To make crowdsourcing a widely recognized idea-generating and problem-solving tool, it’s imperative to understand the reasons of why this tool can fail or underperform.